By Naledi Magowe

Long Form Questions

Meaningful Business (MB): What are the challenges you are trying to solve and who are the main beneficiaries?

Naledi Magowe (NM): At its core, Brastorne exists because we became deeply aware of how invisible digital exclusion can be. We speak about innovation and technology as if everyone participates equally, but in many rural and low-income communities, people are still structurally disconnected from the digital economy. The challenge is not a lack of intelligence, ambition, or effort. It is a lack of accessible infrastructure.

Digital exclusion quietly compounds inequality. When someone cannot access digital services, online information, or formal platforms, they are excluded from opportunity, growth, and voice. Our beneficiaries are the rural poor, particularly women, who are already economically active but digitally marginalised.

MB: What is your solution and what impact have you made to date?

NM: We build context-aware digital solutions that meet our beneficiaries where they are, on their feature phones and entry level smart phones. Our solutions enable access to valuable information and advisory services, markets and opportunities and a social community using offline technologies such as USSD, IVR and SMS.

Our biggest use case is in agriculture where we do this specifically for small holder farmers who are still excluded from the digital world. We have done this in partnership with mobile network operators such as orange and recently MTN, in five countries (Botswana, Cameroon, DRC, Guinea, Zambia) having impacted nearly six million lives over the years.

MB: What has been the most complex or underestimated part of delivering this work?

NM: The most underestimated part has been how much emotional resilience building infrastructure requires. Digital inclusion sounds straightforward – provide access, deploy technology.

In reality, it is layered: localisation, trust-building within communities, institutional alignment, product maturity, and capital constraints.

MB: What is the biggest threat to you right now and why?

NM: The biggest threat is misalignment between opportunity and capacity, as well as between urgency and infrastructure. We operate in a rapidly evolving digital and funding landscape. There is constant pressure to scale quickly, expand into new markets, and launch additional products. But digital infrastructure businesses cannot be rushed. If scale outpaces internal systems, stability suffers. If caution dominates, opportunity is lost.

For me, the tension is always: how do we grow responsibly? Our priority is ensuring that every partnership and product strengthens the core platform. Sustainable scale is very important.

MB: What is your ambition for the future of your business, and what support do you need to increase your impact?

NM: Our ambition is to build Brastorne into a trusted digital inclusion platform across emerging markets, a connective layer between underserved communities and the formal digital economy. We want us to be known not just as a company, but as infrastructure. In the future, I see deeper technology integration, including AI-driven insights and a diversified partnership ecosystem that allows us to scale across multiple markets.

To increase impact, we need aligned partners who understand long-term platform building. We need patient capital, strategic guidance, and technical expertise to strengthen our product roadmap. Ultimately, we are building something bigger than a single market solution. We are building the proof that digital inclusion can be intentional, commercially sound, and transformative.

Quickfire Questions

MB: Can you share a mistake that you’ve learned from? 

NM: Trying to do too much at once. I learned that focus is power. When you clarify what truly matters, momentum follows.

MB: What is something you wish you were better at?

NM: Resting without feeling responsible. Founders often carry outcomes personally. I’m learning that resilience requires space.

MB: What are you most proud of about your work?

NM: That we are creating access where there was once invisibility, and doing it in a way that respects dignity and commercial reality.

MB: What is the one book that everyone should read?

NM: Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a powerful reminder that leadership begins with self-governance. If you lack discipline in your own habits, you cannot sustainably lead people, steward capital, or govern an institution.

MB: What are the sites, blogs or podcasts that you can’t imagine your day without?

NM: Harvard Business Review, McKinsey & Company Insights, and the a16z Podcast.